


Two 'Hail Mary's'

by Sun_Sparks



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, M/M, Robin Tweek, youth pastor craig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 10:58:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14872490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sun_Sparks/pseuds/Sun_Sparks
Summary: “I’ve been stealing,”Craig’s mouth makes a hard line. The goal is to be objective as possible when dealing with confessions, but Craig can’t hide how he feels around the person who knows him best.“God forgives you. I think you should reflect on how it might have affected the people around you during these troubled times when you say your Hail Mary’s.”--An alternative take on Youth Pastor Craig & Robin Tweek from phone destroyer.





	Two 'Hail Mary's'

As Tweek steps into the friary in trepidation, he's surprised he hasn't burst into flames. He's come to see Friar Tucker. He’s usually found here when he's burnt out from a hard day’s work in the community, which is more often than not. The Friar has never been much of a people person and Tweek wonders how he ever got into religion, instead of something more hands-off, like him and medicine. He spots Friar Tucker milling about by the altar.

Silent footsteps give nothing away so a small clear of his throat gets the holy man's attention. Tweek is almost sure he sees him jump. He wasn’t expecting company, and he certainly wasn’t expecting Tweek.

“Hey,” he begins. He receives a subtle nod of the head in response. “Could you take confession?”

Friar Tucker leads his parishioner to the confessional and they take a seat either side.

A few quiet moments pass before Tweek speaks up.

“You seem quiet today,” he states. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m just tired. Burnt out from pretending to be happy all day.”

“You never really hide it that well, Craig” Tweek smiles. He can see his friend smiling between the gaps in the partition.

“Yeah,” he laughs. To anyone else, this would sound monotonous and deadpan, but Tweek knows him so well he can detect even the smallest of nuances. He’s happy to be home. "The community is struggling with these outrageous taxes. There’s only so much 'God stuff’ I can push on people before they lose hope altogether,”

Tweek nods in agreement.

“Anyway, what did you come to confession for?"

Tweek pulls at his collar. He doesn’t really know if he should be confessing. Confession is about guilt and he doesn’t feel guilty, so should he be mentioning it? But in his heart he knows it’s wrong and should probably ask for the Lord’s forgiveness, else he’ll be doomed to hell. He screws his face up in turbulent thought.

“You’re spiralling again.” The Friar states.

Tweek decides to take the plunge anyway. If anything, it would be good to just share the secret. 

“I’ve been stealing,”

Craig’s mouth makes a hard line. The goal is to be objective as possible when dealing with confessions, but Craig can’t hide how he feels around the person who knows him best. 

“God forgives you. I think you should reflect on how it might have affected the people around you during these troubled times when you say your Hail Mary’s.”

“Nnngg Jesus, Craig! Don’t give me that look.”

“I’ve been dealing with the aftermath firsthand and you’re asking me not to give you that look?”

“Yes!” He exclaims, perhaps a little too loudly for a solemn, holy place. “Because I’ve been stealing from the PRINCE!” He finishes his sentence in an awkward half-shout-half-whisper.

“Oh.”

“Don’t “oh” me, Craig! I don’t know whether to feel bad or not!”

Nobody says anything for a little while.

“How are you getting away with this, Tweek?”

“Oh Jesus, I don’t know! LittleJim has been spinning some tall tales about a Robbing Hood highwayman type character, everyone completely believes it,”

LittleJim is the town crier/bard, and one of Tweek’s closest companions. He’s an incredible storyteller too, so Craig isn’t surprised in the slightest he’s managed to pin the blame on someone completely fictitious. He’s the kind of guy that befriends anyone, so it’s no wonder the Sheriff, the Prince and his advisor believed every word. In all honesty, he had too. LittleJim had spun a marvellous tale of the Robbing Hood, a brave hero with incredible skills with a bow and arrow. Loved by the women, admired by the men. Nobody could really say they saw him, if the Robbing Hood even was a him. 

In any case, the Robbing Hood sounded almost everything that Tweek wasn’t – plus how could he shoot an arrow when he jitters and shakes like he does?

“What are you doing with the money?”

“What do you think I’m doing with it? I’ve been putting it back into the community! Haven’t you noticed how many people are 'sick' nowadays?”

Craig ponders this for a moment. He thinks about how many people have mentioned their trip to the apothecary, which, on reflection, is the man sitting to his right behind the screen. He’d figured many people were falling ill as a result of poverty from overtaxation, but on hindsight, he wasn’t called in for any last rites, nor had he noticed anyone truly emaciated.

“I’ve been hiding it at the bottom of their medicines,”

He grins from the other side of the confessional, where he sees Tweek start to pull at his hair from stress.

“How did this even start?”

“Prince Eric came in looking for a love potion. Oh God, don't tell anyone I told you that,” he scrunches his face up again. 

“That's kind of the point of being in this profession, Tweek. Between you, me, and the big man upstairs,” he points upwards.

Tweek catches his breath a moment. “Anyway, I just gave him the same cure-all I give to everyone and snuck one of the rings off his fat fingers as I handed it over.” He looks upwards, almost like he's directing his confession straight to the Lord. “I overcharged him for good measure too,” he says with an air of pride.

The Friar looks over at his friend. “Are you the reason the donations have been higher lately?”

The apothecary nods. “but also probably because there's more money circulating on the sly and people are feeling charitable.”

“What's in that cure-all anyway?”

“Gah, I don't know. It’s some high energy plant I found, makes people more awake.” Tweek reflects on his wrongdoings. “I know it's wrong, but I don't feel bad about stealing from him over and over. Do you think God hates me for this?”

Craig pauses. “I don't think the Lord hates anyone. I like to think the Lord takes our intentions in mind when we commit sin,”

Tweek looks him dead in the eye. “Then why is it any different for us, Craig?” 

The atmosphere in the air changes immediately. The statement pierces the friar's heart like one of the Robbing Hood’s well aimed arrows. He can feel Tweek's gaze on him from the other side of the confessional partition.

“Don't do this to me,”

“Why not? Why not have this conversation, man? All I want to do is make you happy,” He puts his trembling hand on the thin area separating them. “why wouldn't God take that into account for us?”

Memories of smiling through kisses permeate the friar's mind. The kind that stretch from ear to ear and make you unable to put your lips in the right position. Truly blissful. Everything he was trying his best to suppress came bounding to the surface. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t enjoyed the feeling of Tweek’s fingers through his hair, or the genuine care he provides, or the way his eyes give away all emotion like an open book. Right now they're expressing longing, sadness and reminiscence. He imagines his own eyes are probably telling the same things.

“You know we can't-... I can't. It's in my vows,” He looks down at the floor but presses his hand to the partition to match Tweek’s.

This is the most amount of contact Craig allows himself now. They had lived together for a time. As a friar, he took an oath of poverty and often stays periodically with different members of the community. Unfortunately, this vow also includes chastity. Of course, he never let it get that far between them. Craig figured that as long as they weren’t doing anything more than kissing, it wasn’t too much of a sin. Still, the thick cloud of lust that hung around them as they pressed themselves together was suffocating and with the way Craig knew they were looking at each other, it would probably only be a matter of time before he truly condemned himself to hell. 

He left Tweek’s company a few days after they had a close call; they found themselves especially close after getting drunk at a local tavern. Craig doesn’t always feel like the smartest of men, but even he knew it now wasn’t a case of if, but when.

The memories sting Craig’s eyes. He doesn’t just miss the electricity between them, he misses everything that came living with this man. He misses the way Tweek always had time to listen to his day, and how he was always baking him goodies for when he got home. He misses Tweek’s idiosyncrasies; the way he nearly always messes up his buttons and the way he worries about seemingly small things. The friar finds it funny – how someone can work themselves up over the length of their fingernails but not fear the risk to their immortal soul.

“I don't care about that part, Craig,” Tweek says with a new found confidence. He sounds like he's been rehearsing this, and Friar Tucker wouldn’t be surprised if he had. Their breakup of whatever they had going was hard on them both. “It would be nice, but I can live without it. I just want you.”

This must be what the devil feels like, because there's no way soon could be so convincing if it was fire and brimstone. Still, when he catches Tweek’s gaze, all he sees are the angels in his eyes telling him it's okay.

“What about the law then? What would people say? We'd get hanged for this,”

“So? I'd get hanged if they found out I was the one shooting arrows and stealing from the Prince, but LittleJim does a good job of keeping everyone off our backs,” Tweek is looking directly at him now, scanning his face for any sign of affection.

They both stay silent for a time. Tweek makes the first noise with a sigh. “I just wish it didn’t have to be this way between us.”

“Me too,” Craig says, as he gently strokes the area of the partition where he can feel Tweek’s hand. “Me too.”

They stay like this for a while, enjoying the way each other feels. The partition acts as a horrible metaphor for the unfair barriers keeping them apart.

“Um, two Hail Mary’s, I guess. One for me and one for you,” Friar Tucker says, as he looks at his companion.

The pair step outside the confessional. Tweek’s green robes shine bright like his watering eyes and Craig sees the hero in the stories for what he is – beautiful and unashamed. They kneel together in prayer, getting as close to each other as they can without touching. As they do, a statue of the Virign Mother smiles down upon them.

**Author's Note:**

> Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a day.


End file.
